I believed, like many others, that it was density that Man United were going to meet Real Madrid in the Champions League this season. There had been a few seasons of animosity between United and Real Madrid over their pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo, last summer the Spanish club finally got their man.

United comfortably got through to quarter finals of the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday after a 4-0 (7-2 on aggregate) win over AC Milan. Real Madrid played Lyon on the same day; they had to recover from a 1-0 loss in France, in the first leg.

Madrid did go 1-0 up courtesy of a Ronaldo goal but with an away goal scored by Miralem Pjanic with just 15 minutes remaining that was enough to knock out Madrid.

I honestly believed we would play this season, I would have loved to play them but it is just as amusing to see them go out at this stage, especially after all the money they spent during the summer.

If we had played them, how would we have stopped Ronaldo? Well if you are Sir Alex Ferguson, then the only way is by using a machine gun.

"In my mind, I had a thought that, somewhere along the line, we were going to meet them [Real Madrid] and Ronaldo would be up against us,” Sir Alex said.

"We would have needed a machine gun to stop him!"

"I am disappointed for Ronaldo not having qualified. We had someone at the game [against Lyon] and the report was he [Ronaldo] was absolutely fantastic.”